8/2/2007
John Baldessari
Portikus, Frankfurt
Eden: Adam and Eve (with Ear and Nose) Plus Serpent. The project draws on earlier works which already used the motifs of ear and nose as pictorial elements. The sidewalls display magnified sections of a female and a male head. Like reliefs, the two eyes and ears emerge from and are recessed into the wall, respectively, treating them as sculptural and photographic elements at the same time. The front wall displays an oversized black- and-white photograph of a snake held up by a person.
Eden: Adam and Eve (with Ear and Nose) Plus Serpent
We are very pleased that John Baldessari has accepted our invitation,
resulting in the present exhibition at the Portikus. Baldessari has
been developing his own style in video works, collages, and
photography and text montages since the early 1960s. Like many
artists of his generation, he focused on deconstructing a modernist
idea regarding the autonomy of art.
Eden: Adam and Eve (with Ear and Nose) Plus Serpent, a new project
developed for Portikus, draws on earlier works which already used the
motifs of ear and nose as pictorial elements. The sidewalls at the
Portikus display magnified sections of a female and a male head. Like
reliefs, the two eyes and ears emerge from and are recessed into the
wall, respectively, treating them as sculptural and photographic
elements at the same time. The front wall displays an oversized black-
and-white photograph of a snake held up by a person.
The snake motifs has appeared in earlier works by Baldessari such as
the nine-part Shape Derived from Subject (Snake): Used as a Framing
Device to Produce New Photographs, 1981, where, as the title
indicates, it served as a formal means in an experiment with framing.
Only the serpentine line determined the selection of detail. One
photograph from this series shows the same picture of a snake that
now reappears at the Portikus as a complete motif.
In more than one way, the exhibition points toward the
incompatibility of purity and temptation, as described also in the
Christian myth of the Garden of Eden. Baldessari employs the
universal symbolism inherent in his motifs as a means of visual
invention.
John Baldessari (b. National City, 1931) lives and works in Santa
Monica, CA. He is currently Professor of Art at the University of
California, Los Angeles, and taught generations of Californian
artists at the California Institute of Arts, Valencia until 1990.
Most recently, he curated Ways of Seeing: John Baldessari Explores
the Collection at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden,
Washington, DC, and designed the display for Magritte and
Contemporary Art: The Treachery of Images at the Los Angeles County
Museum, Los Angeles.
Opening: February 9, 2007, 8 pm
Portikus
Alte Brucke 2/ Maininsel - Frankfurt